I Have Something to Say

I will forever be in awe of my father’s preaching. For thirty-five years he provided spiritual manna from the same pulpit without ever repeating a sermon unless it was by popular demand. He literally spellbound hundreds of thousands of listeners with messages that were grounded in a progressive theology that dared to posit the compatibility of religion and science instead of pitting the two disciplines against each other. It was from that same pulpit that I was afforded the opportunity to deliver my first sermon, and I fully appreciated the gigantic footsteps that I was stepping into. Preaching was a sporadic endeavor for me until being appointed to Burwell and Taylor, at which time I relished the challenge of preparing a weekly message that would be worthy of my listeners’ attention. Learning to preach from Dad’s pulpit was an exercise in precision since the worship services were broadcast live on radio. That’s how I became a “manuscript” preacher. Eleven double-spaced pages of manuscript (well-rehearsed) came out to the allotted twenty-two minutes. I was told that I was reasonably effective with this style, but as I stood before congregations on a weekly basis I began to sense that it lacked the personal sincerity of an unscripted message spoken from the heart. Thus it was that one Sunday I stepped away from the Taylor and Burwell pulpits to engage in a homiletical “conversation” with those who had come to worship. It was scary, to say the least, but it eventually became my (again, I’ve been told, effective) way of paying homage to a man that taught me the art and science of preaching.